Chicago White Sox

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Dec 21, 2012 -> 12:38 PM) Was that the original question? I don't understand what you mean by "perfomance-wise, ignoring salary completely." Please clarify. It was, just wanted to make sure you knew what I meant.

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Dec 21, 2012 -> 12:35 PM) If Veal replicates his 2012 performance over a full season then he very well could be. It is highly improbable he does that based on his previous track record, but for arguments sake, say he turned the proverbial corner last season, yeah he could be I'm not saying it's going to happen, but it's possible Veal outperforms Thornton next year. Unfortunately, relievers are so volatile year to year that very few GMs would have a ton of faith in Veal, especially based on such a small sample size. On the otherhand, Thornton has been one of the more consistent left-handed relievers in the game and I honestly think some GMs would be willing to pay a premium for that. If a GM has no quality lefties in his pen, Thornton suddenly becomes very attractive. Obviously $6 million ain't cheap, but if the alternative is crap, some GM will come to the table with a decent offer.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Dec 21, 2012 -> 12:31 PM) Veal. Please confirm you mean performance-wise, ignoring salary completely.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Dec 21, 2012 -> 12:20 PM) You're not paying for that track record, you're paying for 2013 Matt Thornton. Teams are not going to pay his contract AND give the Sox a good return in trade. Tthat's why Veal gets the better return. Who do you expect to be better in 2013, Thornton or Veal?

Hahn not bringing back AJ isn't about the money, it's about developing a long-term answer at catcher. Flowers is going to be 27 next year and I'm not sure how many people realize that. It's really now or never for him. If Hahn brought back AJ, he'd basically be writing off Flowers. And let's not forget that Flowers was a highly regarded catching propsect. This was entirely due to his bat and he put up some big numbers in the minors. Yes, we all know he strikes out a ton, but he walks a lot and hits a lot of HRs. As a catcher he doesn't need to put up Adam Dunn like BB & HR totals to be valuable. With consistent playing time, he should make better contact too. He's not going to be Mike Piazza, but he could become a poor man's Mike Napoli IMO. Furthermore, despite being an offensive-minded prospect, he's developed into an above-average defender. For a team that is pitching-driven, his defense will be extremely valuable. The presence of his arm should slow down the run game quite a bit and allow the pitchers to focus more on the batters and less on the base-runners. That's something that's nearly impossible to quantify, but it will make the pitching staff better. Overall, if everything goes right, we have an above-average catcher in his prime under contract for 5 years. That's what Hahn is hoping for and the only way to find that out is if Flowers is given a chance to play everday.

QUOTE (BaseballNick @ Dec 20, 2012 -> 05:51 PM) I disagree. I don't think Robin or Coop trusted Thornton in high pressure situations last year and did everything they could to not put him in them. 38 of his innings last year were high leverage, that's more than half. Unfortunately, the issue with Thornton wasn't that Coop & Ventura didn't trust him, it's that he sucked in these situations. He lost 10 games and had 4 blown saves last year, which shows that our manager kept throwing him out there regardless of the outcome.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Dec 20, 2012 -> 06:09 PM) Yeah, the only way to possibly defend this move is from a business perspective. We just got a massive downgrade in a huge position of need. Flowers > defensively. The question is how will he fare offensively with regular starts. If AJ regresses back to the mean, then it won't take that many HRs and BBs for Flowers to be his equal with the bat.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Dec 20, 2012 -> 05:53 PM) Love how people are so happy to move on from him. We have Tyler Flowers now as a starter. Tyler Flowers is an awful f***ing baseball player. Someone we all wanted cut at the ASB last year. Now he is the future. Great. The catcher hole is now almost bad as the 3B was. Tyler Flowers had a .708 OPS last year in partial playing time. We got nothing close to that from our 3B last year prior to Youkilis coming on board. Plus Flowers is a much better defensive catcher. Most of us love AJ here, but he's not going to repeat last year and we need to see what we have in Flowers. IMO, this was the correct baseball decision.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Dec 20, 2012 -> 03:27 PM) I don't think we can expect a very good return on whatever pieces are on the block if teams prefer filling their needs with free-agents. I don't follow. Most teams would rather overpay in terms of money than talent to fill their needs. As the quantity of quality free agents starts to shrink, teams are forced to explore the trade market for alternatives. That's when guys like Gavin & Thornton become attractive and we're just starting to get to that point.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Dec 20, 2012 -> 03:10 PM) Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be much demand for these chips. The off-season has barely begun. We've seen a lot more moves made in late December & January over the past few off-seasons. Plus free agency has been extremely slow this year. Since most teams would rather spend money than talent to fill their holes, we need guys like Nick Swisher & Edwin Jackson (I know he just did) to sign so a market can develop for our players. I'll start getting worried in late January if Hahn hasn't made any other big moves.

QUOTE (The Ultimate Champion @ Dec 20, 2012 -> 03:03 PM) And if he had held onto Sergio because the deal wasn't there, then what? He'd have an injured player he couldn't trade. Also Kenny's lack on info on Molina makes me very seriously think that this was a Hahn move & Molina was a Hahn target. Kenny IIRC didn't even know what Molina was doing over that offseason. I wouldn't be surprised if last offseason KW kind of let Rick make some decisions on his own to prep him for the promotion. The Andrew Bailey trade happened shortly after the Santos deal was completed and it netted the A's Reddick and their current #6 prospect. That's incredibly more value than KW got for Santos, especially considering he had signed a cheap long-term extension with three team options earlier that off-season.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Dec 20, 2012 -> 02:50 PM) I am hoping this was a green fail. Nope, meant to be black.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Dec 20, 2012 -> 02:44 PM) If you traded on the stock market this way, you'd lose all of your money in about 6 weeks. Wait out for commodities to increase in value and deal them then. Deal them at highest value, not lower. That sort of thing. And let's be honest, one of KW's weaknesses was his impatience. He often took the first deal he liked instead of waiting for a market to develop for his players. We saw this most recently with the Sergio Santos trade where some teams didn't even know he was available.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Dec 20, 2012 -> 02:42 PM) I love the early over-reaction to Hahn not doing anything with the very few, if any, chips he has. The few chips? What are you talking about? We have three SPs, three OFs, two veteran RPs, and plenty of prospects that have value and can be used to improve the team.

I think it's pretty reasonable at this point to assume Hahn is waiting for the last big SP & OF chips in free agency to fall before a move is made. I have no doubt Hahn would like to make an impact move, but the market needs to develop and hopefully opportunities will then present themselves.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Dec 20, 2012 -> 07:18 AM) Buster Olney ‏@Buster_ESPN The Cubs have made strong progress on a four-year, $52 million deal with Edwin Jackson. That's a shame. I really enjoyed Jackson during his brief time here, will suck having to root against him.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 19, 2012 -> 06:07 PM) The Tigers actually have money to spend because they sold out their ballpark. QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Dec 19, 2012 -> 06:42 PM) Well this isn't true. The Tigers have money to spend because of their rich owner. They actually receive money from MLB's revenue-sharing program. QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 19, 2012 -> 08:00 PM) Right. Attendance has nothing to do with payroll. Right, because that's what I said. However, I'm sure attendance is the reason the Tigers can spend more than their revenues over the past few years and have been able to sign guys like Fielder, Martinez, & Hunter while the Sox haven't. Definitely not because of the owner who is willing to put in more than he gets back or the revenue-sharing advantage they have over us.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 19, 2012 -> 06:07 PM) The Tigers actually have money to spend because they sold out their ballpark. Well this isn't true. The Tigers have money to spend because of their rich owner. They actually receive money from MLB's revenue-sharing program.

QUOTE (ScottyDo @ Dec 19, 2012 -> 03:38 PM) And defense is arguably more important at Alexei's position And shortstop is arguably a harder position to fill. Also, Ramirez's contract was based on a higher level of offensive production than we got from him last season. If next year he has another 2012 type season with the bat, then that contract will start looking much worse.

QUOTE (Jake @ Dec 19, 2012 -> 03:02 PM) He's only had an OPS+ of above 100 once. None of his offensive numbers, save stolen bases, are impressive. You put a ton of stock in advanced defensive metrics and his base stealing ability to find any value in him. He can shove that $15M up his ass. Great post...agree 100%.

QUOTE (ScottyDo @ Dec 19, 2012 -> 08:54 AM) Well, it kind of does. There's still a question as to whether or not the improvement was due to experience rather than a natural predilection for one over the other. That's relevant because of his arm strength, which would profile him as a right fielder. Thank you for posting this. I don't understand why anyone would purposely ignore the reason behind his better defense play in LF vs RF. Considering he played RF in the minors, it would highly suggest that his improvement in LF was due to general experience in the OF and not something inherent to LF itself. Like you said, Viciedo has the arm for RF and would be more valuable at that spot. Not giving him another chance in RF based on a small sample of games at a new position would be foolish IMO, especially if the position opens up in the near future.

What exactly makes RF harder to play than LF? I get you want a good arm in RF, which Viciedo obviously has, but in terms of catching and getting to the ball I don't see a difference, at least not at the Cell. And I could be totally wrong here, but I actually would think more balls would be hit to LF given the amount of right-handed hitters in the league. If true, I would think RF would actually be easier to play as long as you have a good arm, but maybe I'm missing something obvious.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Dec 16, 2012 -> 08:41 PM) I will bet there are more assault rifles in the city than there are in "hillbilly" country. It's amazing the sterotypes that come out. Do you own an assault rifle? Not sure why you're catching feelings here. My point was that assault rifles serve no practical purpose, but please get caught up in the "hillbilly" comment. And just so you're aware I'm not anti-guns in the slightest, I just think people needing to own an assault rifle is ridiculous.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Dec 17, 2012 -> 02:05 PM) Well, the FAKE lead off hitter the Sox currently happen to be employing, actually is younger than Bourn, slugged better than Bourn and got on base the same amount as Bourn and is about $15 million a year cheaper. He also bats left handed. I honestly don't care what Bourn's WAR has been, IMO he's incredibly overvalued due to his defense. Also, he's a guy whose value is tied directly to his speed (SBs & range) and once that goes he'll quickly become average at best. I definitely don't want to be the team paying him $15 million a year when that happens. Plus as you point out we have a much cheaper and somewhat comparable alternative.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Dec 16, 2012 -> 07:58 AM) Is the answer to make them safer take away MY guns? Seriously, because some people are f*cked in the head, do you think the solution is to stop ME from having a gun? And Tex, your suicide story would have happened anyway. He didn't just decide to do it because he had access to a gun. That is a whole different bag of issue. I'd like to hear your honest opinion on gun policy. We all know this guy suffered from mental illness. Every single person that does one of these cowardly attacks is either sick or just plain stupid. Unfortunately, it's going to be hard to identify all these people and even if you did there's nothing you can do them to guarantee they won't do something crazy. What we can control is their ability to kill people in large quantities as best we can. What purpose does an assault rifle serve other than making some hillbilly feel powerful? It's not used for sport and it's not used for self-defense unless China decides to invade at some point. It's intended to be a killing machine and should not be allowed for purchase in this country. I don't even understand how they were ever legal in the first place. Banning them would be a small and simple way to possibly limit the amount of deaths in an attack like we saw this week. Obviously such a ban doesn't truly guarantee anyone safety, but I see no benefit to this country by allowing its citizens to purchase assault rifles. Do you disagree on this?